My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Sunday, 31 December 2017

“River Landscape with Farmhouse and Pilgrims” (TIB title);
“Mountain Landscape with Resting Travellers” (Rijksmuseum title), 1597–1629,
after a lost drawing by Pieter Stevens II (c1567–before 1632) from the series,
“Eight Bohemian Landscapes”, published by Aegidius Sadeler.

Etching and engraving on fine laid paper with narrow margins lined
on an archival support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 21.5 x 29.3 cm; (plate) 21 x 28.5 cm

Inscribed within the image border along the lower edge: (left)
“Petri. St. In:”; (left of centre) “Eg. Sa.ex.”

State ii or iv (of iv) (Note: state ii is signified by both
inscriptions having been rendered almost unreadable by the hatching while state
iii is inscribed on the right: “Marco Sadeler excudit.” In state iv this
publisher’s details are erased.)

Condition: marvellously crisp and well-printed impression with narrow
margins. The sheet is in excellent condition (i.e. there are no tears, folds,
abrasions or foxing) but there is a light brown stain in the narrow margin at
the upper left and the lower left corner is slightly chipped. The sheet is laid
onto a support sheet of washi paper.

(Note that this is the second impression
of this marvellous print that I have listed and the earlier impression has been
sold.)

I am selling this superb impression of a very rare print for the
total cost of AU$430 (currently US$335.52/EUR279.79/GBP248.32 at the time of
posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this remarkably detailed and
important print, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will
send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Landscapes executed at the time of Aegidius Sadeler were a rich
amalgam of symbolic meanings.

For example the inclusion of the dead skeletons of trees shown
among living trees on the distant rocky hill is not an incidental detail. The
grouping of living with dead trees projects—for a 17th century audience—the
vanitas meaning about the transience of life: all living things must ultimately
die—like the memento mori symbolism of a skull. Added to this projected
meaning, the juxtaposition of the dead trees with living trees also carries the
connotation that life is a cycle, in the sense that trees may die but they will
be reborn again with the next generation of trees.

Another feature of prints in the 17th century is that many
landscape artists liked to show trees “clutching” onto hillsides with their
exposed roots. Again, this motif of exposed tree roots is not incidental.
Instead, the symbolism was potent for early landscape artists as it signified
life forces at work in nature drawing energy from beneath the earth and up
through the trees to the heavens above.

Condition: crisp and well-inked impression in excellent/near
pristine condition (i.e. there are no significant tears, holes, abrasions,
stains or foxing, but there is a fine line from the original centre fold, which
is now flattened and virtually invisible, and two specks of white in the
printing have been restored).

I am selling this rare and large etching (note that it does not
feature in any of the major museum online repositories) for the total cost of
AU$172 (currently US$134.46/EUR112.03/GBP99.58 at the time of this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this academic study after
Raphael, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you
a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

By design, Fidanza planned this print to be the same size as one
of the heads of the “discepoli d’Archimede” (disciples of Archimedes) from
Raphael’s fresco, “Scuola di Atene” (The School of Athens), 1509–11. According
to an earlier account of the process used by Fidanza published by “A Society of
Gentlemen” in February 3, 1757 (see W Simpkin and R Marshall, “The Critical
Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 3”, p. 174), Fidanza’s approach to
making copies was to oil a sheet of paper so that I would become transparent
and to then use this transparent paper to trace a copy directly from the
original. Heavens to Betsy! … No wonder the old frescoes have darken with time if they had oily copy sheets placed on them!

After comparing the original with the etching, however, I
doubt very much that this process of tracing directly from the original
actually happened as the etched image is not an exact copy of the Raphael’s original
design at all.

Saturday, 30 December 2017

“L’épreuve du sabbat au desert” (Mauquoy-Hendrickx [cat. raisonné]
title) (aka. “Antiochus' Army Killing the Jews during the Sabbath” (Met. title)
1579, plate 3 from the series of 8 plates, “Histoire des Machabées”
(Mauquoy-Hendrickx title), after Gerard
van Groeningen (fl.1550–1599), published by Gerard de Jode (1509/17–1591) in “Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum
veteris testamenti, elegantissimis imaginabus expressum excellentissimorum in
hac arte virorum opera: nunc primum in lucem editus” (Google Transl. “Treasure
holy history of the Old Testament elegant imaginabor expressed in this
excellent works of art, now for the first time to light”)

Engraving on fine laid paper printed in a warm-grey (brownish) ink
with small margins.

Size: (sheet) 21.9 x 30.2 cm; (plate) 20.4 x 28.5 cm

Inscribed below the image borderline: “Ne sabatum violent
abstinent praelio et munitionibus
Iacobitae: satius ducentes in simplicitate mori. quam praecepta dei sui
transgredi / Machab: i. Cap: 2.” (Google transl. “Do not violate the Sabbath
they abstain from the battle, and the strong holds, Iacobitae: leading us on to
his integrity is better to die. How to go beyond the rules of its own”)

Numbered below the image borderline at right: “3”.

Note: only two plates in this series of eight engravings are
signed: Plate 2 and Plate 8.

Lifetime impression; state i (of ii) before the addition of “38”
in the verse (see Mauquoy-Hendrickx vol. 1, p. 8, no. 48 ii)

Condition: crisp, well-printed, slightly silvery impression with
small margins (varying between 5–10 mms). The lower left corner has an
additional tab of paper attached and the sheet has signs of wear (i.e. there is
a light surface patina of dust and age toning and there are minor chips, pencil
marks at the top left and thin areas in the margin) otherwise the sheet is in
good condition for its age (i.e. there are no significant tears, holes, folds,
stains or foxing).

I am selling this masterpiece of early engraving for the total
cost of AU$286 (currently US$223.58/EUR186.28/GBP165.59 at the time of this
listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this exemplary image of the
Baroque period style, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I
will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Should anyone be searching for an image that exemplifies extreme/“over-the-top”
action, then this engraving would fit the description perfectly.

Johannes Wierix, who made the print, was as wild a man—I described
him in a previous post as a “disorderly drunk who had a penchant for upsetting
his employer by ‘losing’ himself at the local tavern and by pawning his
engraving tools.” Indeed, mindful of his leaning towards disorderly behaviour, this
very Baroque composition with its layering of convoluted rhythms seems very
appropriate.

What I find especially interesting about all of the turmoil that
he portrays is that within the disarray are recurrent themes that are arguably a
part of Netherlandish interests at the time:

- the theme of vanitas (note the
regenerating shoots arising from the “dead” tree in the foreground);

- the notion of Weltlandschaft/“World Landscape” (note the
elevated panoramic viewpoint and fascination with caves); and,

- a love of rugged terrain (note the incredibly sharp pointy
mountains in the distant left).

Condition: crisp impression trimmed on the platemark at the top
edge and with narrow margins on the sides and bottom. The sheet is in excellent
condition for its age (i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions, stains or
foxing but there are very minor signs of handling visible verso).

I am selling this visually stunning engraving from the Renaissance
era for the total cost of AU$276 (currently US$215.44/EUR179.96/GBP159.66 at
the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the
world.

If you are interested in purchasing this fabulous print seldom
seen on the art market, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and
I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This is such a bizarre image. For those unfamiliar with the twelve
“The Labours of Hercules”, this scene shows Hercules in his second
“labour”/trial in the act of bashing heads from the mythological creature, the
Hydra of Lerna, like a star baseball player. At this precise moment in the
action, Hercules has just lopped off one of the Hydra’s nine heads—the exact number
varies with who is telling the story (but I like things with nine heads).
Nothing is easy for Hercules. I understand that when he knocks off a head with
his club another two heads appear in its place. If that wasn’t a problem in
itself, the breath of this critter is also poisonous and its blood is so
awfully smelly that the stench is hazardous to poor Hercules health.
Fortunately, Hercules is aided by his nephew, Iolaus, who cauterized the neck
of the monster when a head is removed and thus, in collaboration, they subdue
it. To add further excitement to Hercules’ battle with the Hydra, Juno—a
goddess who harbours a strong dislike for Hercules and his manly ways—decides
to send a squadron of crabs to bite his toes. (ooch!)

For those unfamiliar Frans Floris who designed this composition,
according to the British Museum’s bibliographical details about this artist, he
is famous “for his heroic feats of drinking.” Interesting, Floris was able to condense
the “Twelve Labours of Hercules” to just ten.

See also A Griffiths & F Carey 1994, “German Printmaking in
the Age of Goethe”, exhib. cat., BM, London, pp.142–50, nos 92-8.

Condition: superbly crisp impression in excellent condition (i.e.
there are no tears, holes, abrasions, stains or foxing but the lower left
corner is chipped and there is slight unevenness to the colour of the sheet). The
sheet is laid onto a support sheet of washi paper.

I am selling this important etching showing a break from the
tradition of the heroic landscape of Claude Lorrain (note the portrayed
fountain with its reference to the classical past) and an inventive reconnection
with this tradition through close examination of natural phenomena (note the
attention to detail in the treatment of the bull) for the total cost of AU$210
(currently US$163.50/EUR136.96/GBP121.66 at the time of this listing) including
postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this beautifully executed
etching exemplifying German romanticism at the dawn of the 19th
century, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you
a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This may look like an everyday scene of a bull about to have a
drink from a fountain, but it is much more than this. In fact this seemingly
simple composition is full—“stacked to the rafters” as we say in Australia—with
references to past traditions of composition, choice of subject and how the subject
matter is rendered.

In terms of the composition, note that Reinhart has chosen to
depict the bull from slightly lower than eye level. This is not accidental. The
longstanding tradition that Reinhart is referencing with this low viewpoint is
that of depicting landscape and its animals as “heroic” (i.e. out of the
ordinary in the sense of noble and special).

Regarding the choice of subject, note that Reinhart has chosen a
classical column capital as the base for the bull’s drinking fountain. Again
this is not accidental. Here, Reinhart is referencing the classical landscapes
of artists like Claude Lorrain, Nicholas Poussin and Gaspard Dughet that
feature antique ruins.

Even the way that the bull and the fountain are portrayed is
significant. For example, Reinhart has employed raked lighting so that the
contours of the bull are pictorially explained with little or no ambiguity. Importantly,
the angle of this lighting also suggests a time of day when the poetry
of the scene is heightened.

Essentially what Reinhart is examining in this scene is a visual weaving
of close observation, aesthetic conventions and a fresh poetic vision.

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

“The Betrayal” or “Prise au Jardin” (Bartsch title) (aka “Arrest
of Christ” [BM]), c.1513, from the series, “Fall and Redemption of Man” (aka “The
Fall and Salvation of Mankind Through the Life and Passion of Christ” [the
Met])

Condition: superb lifetime impression in near faultless condition
hinged to a support sheet.

I am selling this exceptionally rare, museum-quality, lifetime
impression for the total cost of AU$550 (currently US$427.52/EUR359.33/GBP318.57
at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the
world.

If you are interested in purchasing this masterwork by one of the
most important of the Renaissance German printmakers, please contact me
(oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make
the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This rich jewel of a woodcut is so finely executed that it
resembles an engraving. Indeed, a lesser printmaker might be tempted to mimic
the portrayed bouncing effect of radiating light by simply cutting “white”/negative
lines. If one looks closely at the radiating lines at the top of the
composition, however, Altdorfer has—with almost unbelievable patience and skill—created
incredibly fine black/positive outlines around each shaft of radiating light.
Even more astonishing, he has chiselled fine contour marks with the thickness
of a hair on the figures to render them with luminous shadows. Amazing!

“Portrait of Christian Ludwig von Lowenstern, half-length, turned
to the right, looking at the viewer from behind a curtain that he holds open
with his right hand, wearing soft cap and robe; an easel behind on the right;
in window frame; below on the right, an open book with coat of arms, books and
pens on the floor; after Fiedler. Mezzotint”

Condition: crisp impression with restored abrasions, faint stains
and laid upon a support sheet of washi paper to stabilise thin areas in the
paper.

I am selling this visually arresting mezzotint for the total cost
of AU$156 (currently US$120.34/EUR101.44/GBP90.07 at the time of this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this intriguing and unforgettable
print, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a
PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

There are a few portraits created through history that “stand out”
in the long tradition of portraiture and this is one of them. The subject of
the portrait, Christian Ludwig Löwenstern (1701–1754), was as artist as signified
by the easel shown in the background and the brushes in the immediate
foreground, but he was also a poet of substance and an author as signified by
the quill and books in the foreground.

Arguably, the reason that this portrait is so arresting is because
of the way that the composition is arranged to prompt a reflexive response in
the viewer. For example, von Löwenstern is shown in the act of lightly pushing
aside the large drape on the left and looking directly at the viewer with a faintly
welcoming smile. Importantly—and I believe that this next visual device is used
intentionally—vonLöwenstern’s pupils are also portrayed as dilated to intuitively
entice a warm response in the viewer.

Beyond exciting a reflexive response, I wish to propose that the trompe
l'oeil depiction of von Löwenstern in the act of drawing the drape to one side is an
orchestrated subliminal reference to the Greek legend of Parrhasius’ curtain.
For those who may not be familiar with the story about this curtain, I will try
to explain. The ancient Greek painter, Parrhasius, was engaged in an art
contest with his artistic peer, Zeuxis. Zeuxis painted a bunch of grapes and
was almost deemed the winner after birds flew down to eat his painted grapes,
but lost the contest when he was invited to pull back the curtain which seemed
to be in front of Parrhasius’ painting: the curtain was not real it was painted
and was so well executed that it had fooled Zeuxis and so Parrhasius was judged
the better painter.